Sean O'Mahony

Sean O'Mahony (1932 – 21 July 2020) was a British music writer and magazine editor. He worked as a music journalist in the 1960s under the name Johnny Dean, and was the founder and editor of Beat Instrumental, The Beatles Book, and Record Collector magazines.

Biography Born in London, he ran a coffee bar before starting work in the music business in the mid-1950s. He wrote songs and contacted music publishers, while working at the same time for ABC Television. In the early 1960s he became the advertising manager of Pop Weekly, a magazine published by Robert Stigwood, through which he first came into contact with Brian Epstein. In late 1962, he established his own magazine, Beat Monthly (later Beat Instrumental), which started featuring the Beatles as cover stars early in 1963.

O'Mahony launched several new magazines in the 1970s, including those devoted to the Police and Starsky and Hutch, and in 1979 launched Record Collector magazine which (as at 2020) continues to be published each month. He also continued to write, and as John Dean wrote the songs and script for the 1999 musical film Julie and the Cadillacs. He retired from his editing responsibilities in 2003.

He died on 21 July 2020, aged 88.